to collect firearms and ammunition. He attended the Bombay AICC session (9 August 1942) and conducted the movement from the underground. He was held in Delhi on 8 January 1943 to be freed only on 3 April 1946 after which he continued his nationalist and trade union work. Trade union movement With Shibnath Bannerjee he worked very hard to form the railway men's union from 1936 onwards. He unionized the workers of Japla, Baulia, and Dalmianagar in Shahabad; Gaya, Jamshedpur and Kanda; of the coalfields of Jharia, Hazaribagh, Kumardhubi; workers of Patna City, Jamalpur; the sugar factory workers of Harinagar and Marhawra; the workers of Talcher and Rajgangpur in Orissa; and Satna in the Central Provinces. Subsequent to the Second World War, the trade union movement gained urgency and strength on account of the untiring efforts of Basawon Singh. He organised the workers on various fields such as sugar, coal, cement, mica, explosives, aluminium, iron and steel industries, railways, post-offices and banks, etc. He was one of the founders of the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, and its president at the state and central levels. Basawon Singh was actively involved with the All India Railwaymen's Federation since 1936 onwards. He was the President of the Oudh Tirhoot (O.T.) Railway Union and the North East Railway Mazdoor Union for several years and since 1946 the vice-president (acting President because Subhas Chandra Bose was the President and he had escaped from India by then) of the All-India Railwaymen's Federation. Dalmianagar and 30 Days' Fast Unto Death Before independence Basawon Singh worked in the trade union movement with unabated zeal for the cause of democratic socialism, because trade unionism was one of the major factors for social change and social justice. Early in October 1938, he was arrested in Dalmianagar under Section 107 of C.P.C. with 6 other leaders for his regular meetings and organising an intensive strike of about 2400 men. In the course of the trade union movement, this prominent socialist leader often resorted to the Gandhian method of fasting to protest against the injustice meted out to workers. On 12 January 1949 he was arrested in Dalmianagar under the Bihar Maintenance of Public Order Act and he was released at the end of March. Afterwards he undertook hunger strike for 30 days in Dalmianagar for the cause of workers. Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and his friend and socialist colleague Jayaprakash